Wednesday, April 9, 2014

The main improvement proportional
representation would make in Quebec politics is to give voters more choice.

No longer would the winner-take-all
system tend to force voters into a choice between a federalist party and a
sovereignist party, choosing the lesser of evils. Almost every vote would count
equally to elect your first choice.

How
would it work on the votes cast in 2014?

But most people ask “how would it
work?” Here’s an easy way to see that. Let’s see how the votes cast in the 2014
election would have a different result, even though the real change would be to
let voters vote differently.

With proportional
representation, the number of Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) elected
matches the share of the votes cast by supporters of each party.

Across
Quebec, the total results under proportional representation would have been 54
Liberal MNAs rather than 70, 32 Parti Quebecois (PQ) MNAs rather than 30, 29
Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) rather than 22, and ten Quebec Solidaire (QS)
rather than only three. That’s
using the nine-region mixed compensatory systemdescribed by Quebec’s Director-General of Elections (DGE).

On
April 7, it took 107,708 votes to elect a QS MNA, 44,345 votes to elect a CAQ
MNA, 35,803 votes to elect a PQ MNA, and only 25,101 votes to elect a Liberal
MNA.

Accountable MNAs

But can we still keep MNAs
accountable to our community or region? Yes.
With the mixed compensatory system described by Quebec’s Director-General of
Elections (DGE), we still elect local MNAs. Voters
unrepresented by the local results top them up by electing regional MNAs, so
that the total MNAs match the vote share. It’s
”compensatory.”

In
each of nine regions, the majority of MNAs would still be elected in local
districts (larger ones, a similar size to the federal election districts), but
at least 40 percent of them would be elected as regional MNAs. Across Quebec you would see about 75
local ridings and 50 regional MNAs.

Local
MNAs and Regional MNAs

On Montreal Island, instead of 28
local MNAs, voters would elect 18 local MNAs and ten regional MNAs.

On
the votes cast in 2014, they would have been 17 Liberals, five PQ, three CAQ,
and three QS. Let’s compare that with the actual results under the
winner-take-all system: 21 Liberals, four PQ, and three QS.

In
Laval, voters would have elected three Liberals, two PQ, and one CAQ, rather
than all six Liberals.

The
128,116 CAQ voters in Montreal Island and Laval, silenced by winner-take-all,
would be fairly represented. Also, PQ voters were slightly cheated, while the
Liberals got a bonus of seven MNAs.

But
in Laurentides—Lanaudière it was the PQ and CAQ that got the winner-take-all
bonus: those voters deserved to elect five PQ, five CAQ, four Liberals, and one
QS, rather than the actual result which elected seven PQ MNAs, seven CAQ, and
one lonely Liberal in Argenteuil.

How would Montreal voters be
represented?

In Montreal Island, assume those 18 larger ridings
elected 13 Liberals, the PQ got three, and QS two. Then the ten regional MNAs are three
CAQ, four Liberals, two PQ, and one QS. These compensate for the
disproportional local results. They top up the number of MNAs from Montreal
Island to make 17 Liberals, five PQ, three CAQ, and three QS, so every vote
counts equally.

Who would those ten regional MNAs from
Montreal Island be?

Open
lists, closed lists, flexible lists

The DGE discussed the options in a
report in December 2007:

1. closed
lists: the top candidates as ranked in the party’s regional nominations;

2.
open lists:
you vote for your party’s regional candidate you prefer;

3. flexible
lists: you can vote for the regional slate or one name on it.

The DGE concluded that the objective
of flexible lists is “to reach a balance between voter choice and better
representation of women and minorities.” That’s also why the Law Commission of Canada recommended it.

So the three CAQ MNAs, for example,
would be the top three as ranked by the regional nominations and personally re-ranked by the voters.
Every MNA has faced the voters. It’s personal.

In Laval, you would have three local
Liberal MNAs, two regional PQ MNAs, and one regional CAQ MNA.

In Laurentides—Lanaudière you would
have four local PQ MNAs and one regional, four local CAQ and one regional, one
local Liberal and three regional, and one regional QS.

Would those three regional Liberal
MNAs be real MNAs, or would they just have safe seats? Not safe at all: in 2018 the
Liberals might very well elect more local MNAs, and not be entitled to any
regional compensatory MNAs in Laurentides—Lanaudière. So those three regional
MNAs will certainly open local offices in their community, where they hope to
win a local seat in 2018.

Would the government be a coalition? Possibly. It is interesting
that the Liberals could pass bills with the support of either the CAQ or QS or
the PQ, so they might govern as a minority, or as a coalition, or as an "accord"
-- common in New Zealand: a "confidence-and-supply" agreement, where the partner
agrees to pass budgets and vote confidence in return for an agreed agenda, but
remains free to move amendments to bills, and is not in cabinet. Ontario had an
"Accord" government in 1985-87.

Regional
results

Liberal
voters were also under represented in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean—Côte-Nord. With proportional
representation, this region elects three Liberal MNAs, three PQ, and one CAQ,
rather than only two Liberals and five PQ. (That’s one local Liberal MNA and
two regional, three local PQ, and one regional CAQ.)

In the other five regions described by
the DGE, the results under proportional representation would be:

Montérégie:
eight Liberals, six PQ, six CAQ, and two QS, so QS gains two at the cost of the
PQ. (That’s five local Liberal MNAs and three regional, five local PQ MLAs and
one regional, three local CAQ and three regional, and two regional QS.)

Capitale-Nationale—Mauricie:
six Liberals, four PQ, five CAQ, and one QS, rather than the 13 Liberals, one
PQ, and two CAQ elected April 7. (That’s six local Liberal MNAs, one local PQ and
three regional, two local CAQ and three regional, and one regional QS.)

The
west and north (Outaouais, Abitibi and North): five Liberals, two PQ, one CAQ,
and one QS, rather than the eight Liberals and one PQ elected April 7. (That’s five
local Liberal MNAs, one local PQ and one regional PQ, one regional CAQ, and one
regional QS.)

Estrie-Centre-du-Québec:
three Liberals, two PQ, three CAQ, and one QS, rather than five Liberals and
four CAQ. (That’s three local Liberal MNAs, two local CAQ and one regional, two
regional PQ, and one regional QS.)

Eastern
Quebec (Chaudière-Appalaches,
Bas-Saint-Laurent, and Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine): five Liberals, three
PQ, four CAQ, and one QS, rather than the six Liberals, four PQ, and three CAQ
elected April 7. (That’s four local Liberal MNAs and one regional, two local PQ
and one regional, two local CAQ and two regional, and one regional QS.)

So across Quebec, the Liberal caucus
would include 41 local MNAs and 13 regional MNAs. The PQ caucus would include 19
local MNAs and 13 regional MNAs. The CAQ caucus would include 13 local MNAs and
16 regional MNAs. The Quebec Solidaire caucus would include two local MNAs and eight
regional MNAs.

And these totals match province-wide
proportionality almost exactly. (Due to rounding differences using nine
regions, the province-wide calculation would give the CAQ one more MNA and the Liberals
one fewer.)

More
political diversity

Instead of the CAQ caucus holding having
no representative from Montreal Island and Laval, it would have had four MNAs
there: maybe Mathieu Binette, Sylvain Medza, Richard Campeau, and Domenico
Cavaliere?

Instead of the 323,124 Quebec
Solidaire voters electing only three MNAs, and none from outside the island of
Montreal, they would have elected seven more. Maybe Manon Blanchard and Carl
Lévesque in Montérégie, Vincent Lemay-Thivierge in Laurentides—Lanaudière, Marie-Ève
Duchesne in Capitale-Nationale—Mauricie,
Benoit Renaud in the west and north (Outaouais, Abitibi and North), Hélène
Pigot in Estrie-Centre-du-Québec, and Marie-Neige
Besner in the East of Quebec (Chaudière-Appalaches, Bas-Saint-Laurent,
Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine)?

Instead of the 130,827 Liberal voters
in Laurentides—Lanaudière being almost silenced, they would have elected three
regional MNAs as well as Yves St-Denis. Maybe Vicki Emard, Marie-Claude Collin,
andIsabelle Leblond?

I have shown no one elected from
Option Nationale or any other party, because they did not get enough votes to
win even one regional seat. Furthermore, many people would prefer a threshold
of 4% or 5% before a party can win a regional seat.

This projection assumes
voters voted as they did in 2014. In fact, more would have voted. And some
would have voted differently -- no more strategic voting. We would likely have
seen different candidates -- more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We could
have seen different parties. Who knows who might have won real democratic
elections?

The
Mixed Compensatory system in a nutshell

Each voter has two votes.

The local vote is used to elect an MNA to represent your riding, as
today.

The regional vote or party vote is used to elect several regional
MNAs from your region.

The local vote can be cast by marking your ballot with an X for any candidate
standing in your riding, as we do today. The candidate chosen by the largest
number of voters in a riding wins the seat on a winner-take-all basis.

The regional vote can be cast by marking your ballot with an X for any regional
candidate standing on the regional ballot.

If that candidate is a party candidate, this vote counts as a vote for your
party. The parties' regional votes are then counted to give the level of
support for each party in the region.

If a party’s voters have managed to elect only a few local MNAs in that region,
or none at all, that party gets additional “top-up” seats to make their
final total more in line with their vote share in the region. You can vote for
the regional candidate you prefer: it’s personal and proportional. The party’s regional
candidates with the most votes win those seats.

Personalized proportional
representation

Every voter has competing MPs: you can go to your local MP or one of your
diverse regional MPs. Germans call this "personalized proportional
representation."

Once every vote counts,
voters will be free to vote for their real first choice, and more voters will
find it worthwhile to vote. Turnout is 5 to 6 points higher in countries where
the electoral system is proportional, says research published by Elections Canada.

With two votes, you can
vote for the party you want in government. And you can also vote for the local
candidate you like best regardless of party, without hurting your party, since
it's the second ballot that determines the party make-up of the legislature.
About 35% of voters split their ballots this way in New Zealand with a similar
system.

Locally anchored MNAs

The models rejected in Ontario and PEI had closed
province-wide lists for the additional “top-up” MPPs.

This failure was no
surprise to the UK’s Jenkins Commission,
which recommended the same system described above. Jenkins said top-up MPs locally
anchored to small areas are “more easily assimilable into the political culture
and indeed the Parliamentary system than would be a flock of unattached birds
clouding the sky and wheeling under central party directions.”

Will the Liberal caucus still remember why
they wanted proportional representation in 2005-2006?

In 1970, René Lévesque was cheated by winner-take-all, when the PQ
came second with 23% of the vote, but stood fourth in the assembly with only
seven seats. In 1973, again Lévesque was cheated when the PQ vote rose to 30%
but it won only six seats. So when he finally won, after losing the 1980
referendum he turned his mind to proportional representation.

But his caucus balked in 1981-4, just as Charest's
caucus did in 2006. And just as Pierre Trudeau's caucus would not even let him
implement his 1980 Throne Speech commitment. In 1980 Pierre Trudeau's problem with western under-representation in
his government was extreme: he had only two MPs from the four western
provinces, both from Manitoba. Trudeau would have had sixteen more western MPs
with proportional representation. In its 1980 Speech from the Throne, Trudeau’s
newly re-elected Liberal government promised to appoint a committee to study
the electoral system. One of the very few promises he could not keep. (Although
70% of Canadians support PR, this seldom includes
government backbenchers.)

Technical note

The rounding method used in this calculation is “highest remainder,” because
it's the simplest. Germany used to use this too, on the premise that it offset
the risk to proportionality of the 5% threshold.

About Me

Although I am a member of Fair Vote Canada's Council at the federal level, the views expressed on this blog are my own.
I have been a lawyer since 1971, an elected school trustee from 1982 to 1994, past chair of the Board of the Northumberland Community Legal Centre, and so on.